Unemployed rural workers

It is social progress to include jobless rural migrant workers in the urban unemployed register, says an article on the website of Xinhua News Agency. The following is an excerpt:

According to a circular issued recently by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, rural migrant workers who have lost their jobs after working for more than half a year in a specific city will be included in the local unemployed register. Experts said it is a clear sign of the changes in China's unemployment rate registration. It is hoped that soon the provinces that hire most migrant workers will amend their statistics by factoring this change in.

In the past, China's urban unemployment rate only recorded the jobless in cities, excluding rural migrant workers even if they had already made their homes in cities. Now, the requirement of the central government to include rural migrant workers in the registration shows respect for the rights of these workers and also helps give a true figure of the jobless.